Quotes of the Day

posted at 10:41 pm on March 19, 2014 by Jazz Shaw

Global equity markets ended lower on Wednesday while yields on U.S. Treasuries jumped after comments by U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen raised the possibility that interest rates could rise soon than has been expected.

Yellen, speaking at her first press conference as the Fed chief after the close of the U.S. central bank’s two-day policy meeting, said the Fed could start to raise interest rates around six months after its current asset purchase program ends…

“She certainly moved it up a little bit and I don’t think the market was expecting that at all because she is widely viewed as being more on the dovish side of the aisle than she is on the hawkish side,” said Peter Kenny, chief executive officer of Clearpool Group in New York.

Fears that the Fed’s policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee might move away from its near-zero rate policy sooner than some traders had previously thought unleashed a wave of selling in the bond market. Short-dated and intermediate Treasuries suffered the biggest losses since they are seen as the most vulnerable to a swifter change in Fed policy.

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“I think the market being reminded that the Fed will eventually raise rates is getting traders’ attention,” John Canally, an economic strategist at LPL Financial Corp. said in a phone interview from Boston. His firm oversees about $438.4 billion. “We’ll probably get a couple days of back and forth in the markets, but this is all good change.”

Bonds and U.S. equities retreated as the Fed said officials predicted their target interest rate would be 1 percent at the end of 2015 and 2.25 percent a year later, higher than previously forecast, as they upgraded projections for gains in the labor market. The central bank also reduced the monthly pace of bond purchases by $10 billion, to $55 billion.

Benchmark indexes extended losses as Yellen said the quantitative easing program would end this fall if the Fed continues to taper purchases in measured steps. She said she sees a “considerable time” between the end of the stimulus and the first rate increase, meaning “six months or that type of thing.”

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Janet Yellen isn’t one to declare victory and go home. Today, the Federal Reserve chair announced that the central bank will keep working to stimulate the economy even though it has already almost achieved the goal it set for itself in 2012, to bring the unemployment rate down to 6.5 percent.

At her first press conference since becoming chair of the Fed in February, Yellen explained that Fed rate-setters will abandon the 6.5 percent target and instead look at a broader range of data to decide when and how much to curtail stimulus.

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Janet Yellen was boring. And that’s exactly what she wanted to be.

The newly installed Federal Reserve chair, in her first big policy meeting and news conference, gently nudged the central bank away from its extraordinary easy-money policies and toward a more normal footing in a way that only mildly upset markets, which sank a bit on the slightly more hawkish tone.

“It was surprising but I don’t place much weight on it,” Pantheon Macroeconomics’ Ian Shepherdson said of the “six-month” comment. “I guess the pressure of the occasion got to her. Otherwise her performance was solid, she did her best to make the dove case, having been dealt a poor hand by her colleagues, nudging up their rate forecasts.”

Stocks quickly sold off following the “six-month” comment but recovered later as investors got more comfortable that the remark was hardly a firm policy commitment and was not really out of line with what the FOMC said in its consensus projections. It also happens to be exactly the consensus among Wall Street analysts for when the Fed will start bumping up rates.

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The Fed, under Bernanke, promised that when the unemployment rate hit 6.5%, the central bank would raise interest rates. This was called quantitative guidance, and it fed Wall Street’s fetish for largely made-up numbers. The 6.5% benchmark was a big hit with traders. It meant they didn’t have to think very hard: when unemployment hit 6.5%, Wall Street could start girding itself for a rise in interest rates.

Then Yellen shut down the betting parlor. In a statement, the Fed said it “will take into account a wide range of information, including measures of labor market conditions, indicators of inflation pressures and inflation expectations, and readings on financial developments. This is what is now called ‘qualitative guidance’”.

Translation: the Fed is looking at when the economy improves, and the economy comprises a giant number of measures and statistics. If Wall Street wants Cliffs Notes, it will have to look elsewhere.

There are complicated structural reasons why we are in the longest and weakest recovery of the post WW II period. When I interviewed Yellen earlier this year, she made it quite clear that she knew that the Fed’s firepower was running low—although she still believed that clear and thoughtful forward guidance could help calm markets. (Today’s reaction shows that will be a tricky act to pull off.) Still, by proving hawks that had predicted a Yellen-led Fed would remain too dovish for too long wrong, she’s showing a careful regard for the market impact of long-term loose monetary policy. She may be concerned about the “human impact” of unemployment, but she clearly doesn’t want markets to crash, either.

All in all, I’m rather surprised that the markets took the rate hike news as so hawkish and definitive, given that she stressed again and again that the Fed would be watching a broad range of economic indicators to make sure that they were getting the timing of internet rate tightening right…

To me, that’s reassuring. It’s interesting that to markets it was worrisome. That shows just how dependent investors have become on Fed news going in one direction only and how removed some asset prices have become from fundamentals. When I close my eyes, breathe deeply and visualize the future, I see…more volatility.

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PROGRAMMING NOTE: Allahpundit is still standing in line to volunteer for the Crimean Army, but should be returning as soon as that no longer exists.

Having it laid out as human sacrifice (plain, simple, pagan, human sacrifice) is new to me. I’ve understood it as brutal and exclusive — only a Muslim is a properly human, human being, and killing others is therefore not akin to murder; ref. Nazis and Pariahs and some slavery systems –

But this is a different light. It strips the whole veneer of war and war crime away, and the veneer of that false religious parity between the “big three monotheistic religions,” and all that’s left on the table are people that might just as easily be praying to Molech or a volcano.

That the stock market would react to what the fed ‘might’ be doing illustrates the problem. This is a house of cards built on easy money and when the gravy train slows down and comes to a halt, because we can’t live in a fantasy land forever, this house of cards will blow over.

Rev 6:9 And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:
Rev 6:10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?
Rev 6:11 And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.

Rev 17:6 And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.

Rev 19:2 For true and righteous are his judgments: for he hath judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand.

Rev 20:4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

Yes, it is an extremely difficult subject to bring up, but it needs to be. Also, the Left must be forced to acknowledge it even if they fail to condemn it. Literal butchers in slaughterhouses chopping Christians into pieces and/or hanging headless corpses upside down like a side of beef. They probably wanted to bleed it. It’s the same procedure for halal.

Here’s one of the money quotes:
After Obamacare’s passage, just 13 percent of American physicians agreed with the AMA’s support of the law, according to survey from physician recruitment firm Jackson & Coker. Surveys have repeatedly found that doctors don’t believe the law will let them help patients and make a living.

My only quibble with the article is the authors assertion that Surgeons are the “most highly trained” doctors–surgeons are highly trained at BEING SURGEONS. Beyond that, they consult medicine doctors.

The article is short and brutally truthful. Just reinforces the point that the AMA is a left wing political organization, and is not representative of most doctors.

So….no war souvenirs? Well he should bring something back. Dang first Bishop leaves, leaving us nothing but a stinking old tackle box. We’ll never get anything from him when he returns. Been there done that. Now Allah leaves, nothing. Crap. This place goes to heII at night. Plus Bishop will never see this, let alone read it.

So….no war souvenirs? Well he should bring something back. Dang first Bishop leaves, leaving us nothing but a stinking old tackle box. We’ll never get anything from him when he returns. Been there done that. Now Allah leaves, nothing. Crap. This place goes to heII at night. Plus Bishop will never see this, let alone read it.

With AC, I rarely progress further than flipping the circuit breaker. Now DC is a whole ‘nother ball game–played with that for four years. Nothing worse than a couple of second degree burns and a blown 75a fuse…

Now now-we all know that the only reason that I picked them, was because I’m still upset that the cool kids wouldn’t let me sit at their table during lunch almost 30 years ago.///
*glares…through hipster glasses.*

Yes, it is an extremely difficult subject to bring up, but it needs to be. Also, the Left must be forced to acknowledge it even if they fail to condemn it. Literal butchers in slaughterhouses chopping Christians into pieces and/or hanging headless corpses upside down like a side of beef. They probably wanted to bleed it. It’s the same procedure for halal.

Resist We Much on March 19, 2014 at 10:56 PM

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— It shouldn’t be. The fact that we have enemies that hang us from hooks and we don’t want to think about it should tell us something about our posture. :)

It bothers the hell out of me — which just means I need to get with the program.

What he’s found through first-hand testimony and actual video footage that he’s posted on his site are human slaughter houses in Syria used to exterminate Christians and Muslims. Yes, Muslims. They are run by Syrian rebel Takfiri Jihadists groups. One such group is called ISIS, which stands for the Islamic group of Iraq and Syria. Another group is called Umm Muhammad. These rebel groups were rounding up Christians and Muslims who disagreed with the Takfiri ideology.

I’d like to join the conversation assuming there is one but my eyes are bothering me. I did a lot of museum stuff on the computer today. And frankly I’m kind of depressed at what’s going on in this country and our “representatives” are doing nothing to help us. Going to bed.

I was alluding to a comment that ‘my most bestest buddy’- NativeTexan-made last week.
I picked ’em because they work well w/ my coloring and because they’re a bit spunky/ sassy w/ o being too young looking,

There are complicated structural reasons why we are in the longest and weakest recovery of the post WW II period.

Nothing complicated about it. Bush and Obama, and their parties in congress, have dramatically increased the costs of government. It was already costly enough and they compounded that problem. Yellen, like her predecessors, is there to see the costs are covered, and hope that most never realize they are, in fact, paying higher taxes in those higher prices for gas, food and, ultimately, everything else.

Hell-bent on arming opposition forces in Syria—despite strong evidence that they’re run by Islamic terrorists—John McCain displayed behavior unbecoming of a United States Senator during a recent meeting with Syrian Christian leaders touring Capitol Hill.

The delegation of Syrian clergy came to Washington to raise awareness among lawmakers of the growing crisis among the region’s minority Christian community. Christians make up about 10% of the Syrian population and they are being targeted and ruthlessly murdered by radical elements of the rebel forces, according to the visiting church officials. They say the media and human rights groups in the west have been largely silent on the ordeal of the Christians in Syria.

…

But Senator McCain, an Arizona Republican, evidently doesn’t want to hear negative stories about the rebels he’s working to arm. So he stormed out of a closed-door meeting with the Syrian clergy officials last week. Held in the Senate Arms Services Committee meeting room, the reunion also included senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Graham is a Republican and the rest are Democrats.

McCain marched into the committee room yelling, according to a high-level source that attended the meeting, and quickly stormed out. “He was incredibly rude,” the source told Judicial Watch “because he didn’t think the Syrian church leaders should even be allowed in the room.” Following the shameful tantrum McCain reentered the room and sat briefly but refused to make eye contact with the participants, instead ignoring them by looking down at what appeared to be random papers.

The outburst was so embarrassing that Senator Graham, also an advocate of U.S. military intervention in Syria, apologized for McCain’s disturbing outburst. “Graham actually apologized to the group for McCain’s behavior,” according to the source, who sat through the entire meeting. “It was truly unbelievable.”

…

Besides the fact that a Syrian Islamist group is essentially steering U.S. policy, a number of domestic and international media outlets have confirmed that terrorists—mainly Al Qaeda—are running opposition forces in Syria. For instance the New York Times published a piece that reveals Islamist rebels—including the most extreme groups in the notorious Al Nusra Front, an Al Qaeda-aligned force—are running the show in Syria. “The Islamist character of the opposition reflects the main constituency of the rebellion,” the story says. “Nowhere in rebel-controlled Syria is there a secular fighting force to speak of.”

Incredibly, last month an international news agency reported that Congress secretly approved U.S. weapons flow to what officials describe as “moderate” Syrian rebel factions. The White House refused to comment on the back-door operation, but the story cites U.S. and European officials who say the weapons deliveries have been funded by the U.S. Congress, in votes behind closed doors, through the end of government fiscal year 2014.